The Investing Edgeof Enterprise IT

Last week, we announced that Baiyin Zhou joined Ascent Venture Partners as our newest senior associate. This is particularly exciting because adding to our team is the most important thing we do – and it’s not something we do often. Baiyin is our first new investment team member in 10 years. At Ascent, we treat hiring very seriously, and ourRead more…

We love when our partners succeed. And today, we’re very pleased to offer congratulations to our portfolio company CloudLock, the leading provider of cloud cybersecurity solutions, and highlight their exemplary award recognition in the last couple weeks. Yesterday, co-founder and CEO Gil Zimmermann, was publicly named as EY Entrepreneur of the Year in New England, recognizing his excellence and extraordinaryRead more…

“What’s the next killer app in the Internet of Things?” It was the first of many topics of discussion at the Ascent B2B IT Forum in Cambridge on Tuesday night. In front of a packed house of nearly 200 attendees, panelists at “From Industry 4.0 to iWatch: The Internet of Things” suggested several groundbreaking ideas that might be in theRead more…

First of a three-part series from Luke Burns, offering observations on what makes a successful startup at every stage of growth. There might not be a better time to be an entrepreneur on the East Coast. Massachusetts companies raised over $1 billion (over 100 deals) in venture capital in Q2 of 2014, the state’s highest in three years, according toRead more…

As we enter the middle of summer, new college graduates are setting out to change the world with their innovative ideas. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) projects 1,606,000 students at the bachelor’s degree level will graduate as the college Class of 2014. This year many of those students will choose to start their own companies, as entrepreneurship hasRead more…

It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years since I earned my MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. The resources, network and opportunities it offered in many ways helped steer me on my career path and to where I am today. Recently I was lucky enough to serve as a panelist in an alumni entrepreneur workshop that took placeRead more…

Our blog has been relatively quiet for the last month, but it’s not because we’ve stopped writing or taken a long vacation. We’ve been quite busy, actually, contributing articles to various publications throughout the month of August. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve written recently, in case you missed them: GigaOM: The Problem with SaaS Metrics (August 4th) IRead more…

I’ve seen the venture capital due diligence process from both sides of the table and I know how comprehensive and exhaustive it can be (sometimes to the chagrin of the entrepreneur). But it’s a critical part of the process, ensuring that the venture investor is fully bought into the team, product, market, etc. A typical venture capitalist makes only aRead more…